


Deja Vu

by fishfingersandjellybabies



Series: Recovery Trilogy [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 13:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10594593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishfingersandjellybabies/pseuds/fishfingersandjellybabies
Summary: This has happened before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another post nightwing 18 garbage heap. A prequel to _[Everything](http://fishfingersandjellybabies.tumblr.com/post/159324814247/everything-fic)_ , though. I just have a lot of emotions and stuff on how Damian’s recovery would go, and what them folks around him would think. I’m also having some dad feels lately hahaha. And Damian being a tiny baby feels.

He remembered it like it was yesterday.

Coming back to his family after a year away. Damian a newly minted Robin. Dick, shot and injured and probably dying, but still fighting the good fight, like he always had. 

_Two months off, no debate,_ he had said. And he remembered Damian panicking. Remembered that was the first and only _real_ time Damian openly panicked, about Dick being taken away as his partner. Remembered both himself and Dick laughing, and telling the child not to worry. 

Still, he remembered the injury. Remembered those two months of recovery. The moments Dick would wince out of nowhere in pain. Working through some rehab with both Damian and Tim. 

He remembered having nightmares about it. Waking up in the middle of the night and rushing to a computer. Needing to hear Dick’s voice, needing to see him sleeping in his bed at the penthouse. Needing to make sure his son was still alive.

He remembered. Every day since it happened. Vowed to never let it happen again. Simon Hurt would never harm Dick again. Bruce would die before that happened.

But unfortunately, Simon Hurt was smart. And he didn’t attack Dick again. At least not physically.

He attacked Damian instead.

The same injury, a bullet to the head. So many hours until it left him an invalid not even capable of speech, or dead. 

The flashbacks came in waves, as Dick and his girlfriend rushed into the cave from their vehicle, Damian cradled limply in Dick’s arms. As Dick rambled quickly about what happened while Bruce held his arms out for Damian himself. 

And Bruce was frozen, after he rushed his son to the operating table where Alfred waited. Stood there at Damian’s side, held his hand – but all he could see was Dick in the same position however many years earlier. 

Except Dick was a grown man when Hurt had shot him. Damian was only _thirteen_. 

The waves of flashbacks turned into waves of emotions long hidden. Fear. Terror. Sadness. Guilt.

Hurt tried to take another son from him. He might lose Damian _again_.

Even after Alfred finished the surgery, and situated the anesthetized Damian into a move comfortable position, Bruce clung to those tiny fingers. Refused food and sleep to instead just watch his boy. His littlest boy. The one who loved them all so deeply, and none of them, singularly or together, could ever match it, no matter how hard they tried. 

He could hear Dick elsewhere in the cave, angsting. Blaming himself, hating himself. _This was his fault_ , he was telling someone – that woman probably, or maybe Alfred, who had excused himself after the surgery – _this was his fault and if Damian died he’d never forgive himself._

But Bruce didn’t blame him so harshly, not really. 

After all, this was all their faults; it was just as much Bruce’s as it was his eldest son’s. 

Because, when was the last time he’d really seen Damian? Spent any time with him? Sure, he saw him here and there, but…but Alfred had told him the last time he came home from his own missions.

He’d missed his son’s thirteenth birthday.

 _Everyone_ had, in fact.

Damian was off doing his own things, and sure, Bruce knew that if he called, for any reason, good or bad, Damian would come running.

He just never called. 

And maybe that would have made a difference here. Or maybe not.

Maybe if he’d known that Damian was going to Bludhaven, or about this Shawn Tsang, he’d have been there with his sons. Fighting along side them. Maybe then Damian wouldn’t have run off on his own, or had the chance to be cornered by Hurt. Maybe he would have been able to physically protect him, or beaten up Hurt himself before he had the time to shoot.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Again, his mind drifted to when it was Dick in this position, and he frowned. 

He didn’t sit by Dick’s bedside, then. Didn’t think of the what-ifs and maybes. Just told him two months off and moved on to the next big, worldly problem. Let Dick handle it on his own. Let Damian help him on his own. 

…He would never be good enough for his children, he decided, even as, in his unconsciousness, Damian squeezed his fingers, and he squeezed back. He would never be able to give them what they deserved, no matter how much he wanted to. It would always be hindsight. He’d always say: “Next time, for sure.”

(It would be next time, for sure, though. Next time he even _heard_ Doctor Simon Hurt’s name, he’d hunt him down. Beat him to within an inch of his life.

That bastard will not hurt another one of his children. He will not hurt Dick or Damian ever again. Bruce swore on his own life, then, and on the lives of his parents.

There were things worse than death. And Simon Hurt was going to pay for this.)

He smirked, then. No wonder Damian was so hard on himself. It appeared to be an unfortunate hereditary trait. 

“Sorry, Damian.” He whispered, rubbing his thumb along the back of Damian’s hand. “Looks like you pulled the short straw.”

Damian didn’t answer, and of course he wouldn’t. Bruce sighed, and clasped his other hand over Damian’s too, before leaning his cheek on the bundle of fingers and closing his eyes.

He used Dick’s anguish as his own lullaby to drift off to.

He doesn’t know how long he dozed for, or when Dick stopped talking. All he knew was Damian’s hand was suddenly moving in the cocoon of his, and when he sat up with a start, there was a crick in his neck.

“…Father?” Damian blinked up at him with bleary eyes. His voice was hoarse. “What are you doing here?” A pause, as he looked around. “…Where _is_ here?”

“The cave.” Bruce hummed, eyes dropping to the bandage around Damian’s neck. No new blood had begun seeping through the gauze. At least, not yet. So that was a good sign. “Dick brought you here after he took down Hurt.”

“…Oh.” Damian’s brows furrowed. “Well. You didn’t have to waste your time here, Father. The injury is nothing. I’ll be back on my feet by morning.”

Bruce snorted a laugh, and Damian looked up at him indignantly. “Son, you were _shot_. In the _head_. Two months off, no debate.”

Damian opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it, staring up thoughtfully. 

“…You said that to Grayson. When Hurt shot _him_.” And of course Damian remembered. How could Bruce think he wouldn’t? “…Is Grayson okay? And his woman?”

“They’re both fine. Worried out of their minds for _you_ , but fine.” Bruce smiled softly. “…You did good, son.”

Damian hummed. “I don’t know about that, Father. If I did so _good_ , why did I get shot in the first place?”

“I mean in general, Damian. You protected Dick when he needed you to most.” Bruce pushed. “If it weren’t for you, it might be Dick here on this hospital bed, or worse.” 

“…Father, you shouldn’t be wasting your time worrying about me.” Damian whispered, looking down. “Goodness knows Grayson isn’t…”

“Don’t talk like that.” Bruce said gently, hooking his thumb under Damian’s chin and lifting his face. “He loves you just as much as I do, and is worried _sick_. Besides, who said I was _wasting_ my time?”

Damian looked sheepish, blinking quickly. 

“How do you feel?” Bruce asked instead. “Are you in any pain?”

Damian thought about it, and shrugged. “A little. It’s mostly sore. Maybe with a little training I can-”

“Two months.” Bruce repeated with a grin. “ _No_ debates.” 

Damian huffed, and looked down to where Bruce was still holding his hand with both of his own. Carefully, Damian turned his hand over, but didn’t pull it away. 

“You’re being ridiculous and overprotective, Father.” Damian pouted. 

“It’s kind of my job.” Bruce returned softly. “Go back to sleep, Damian. You need your rest.” A pause, when Damian’s eyebrows furrowed again in concern. “Don’t worry, I’ll sit with you here until you fall back to sleep.”

Damian still hesitated, then glanced up. And with the smallest voice Bruce had ever heard, from Damian or otherwise, he said: “…Promise?”

Bruce grinned wider, patting Damian’s hand. “Promise.”

“Good.” Damian nodded shortly, though winced at the movement. Just like Dick had. “…Father?”

“Hm?”

“…What was Mother like back when you loved her?” Damian asked. “How did you two meet?”

Bruce blinked, confused for a moment. But then he realized: Damian was asking for a…

…A _bedtime story._

He relaxed a little bit, exhaled a laugh. Rested his elbows on the mattress without letting Damian’s hand go. Damian’s eyes were already half-lidded, and Bruce knew this wouldn’t take long. 

“Well, I was a younger man, then. _Way_ younger. Dick was Robin, and we were following a case. And she was a medical student in the city…”


End file.
